STANFORD -- A passing but "forthright" comment made in January during a
meeting with a newspaper editorial board seems to have established President
Gerhard Casper as one of the nation's leading advocates of a three-year
degree undergraduate degree program.

"What has gotten me this unasked-for notoriety," Casper told the Faculty
Senate on Thursday, March 4, "is that I supposedly favor the three-year
college and I have a plan to implement it forthwith."

Alas, "I have no secret plan and I have no secret task force trying to
bring about a three-year college at Stanford," Casper said.

He told the senate that his comment - made the centerpiece of a resulting
story in the San Francisco Chronicle and other news and editorial columns -
seems to have struck a responsive chord with a public concerned about the
high cost of education.

But "my primary concern in this discussion has been the coherence and
quality of undergraduate education," Casper said. "Its length has been a
rather secondary concern."

Casper said he was "delighted" to have started the lively debate.

"It is also fair to say that I think it is naive that major universities
can go on as they have done in the past without reexamination of their ways,"
he said.

The president said he hopes the issue will continue to be discussed at
lunches, at Tresidder Union, in the "board rooms" of the Stanford Daily and
at many dinner parties.

As for Casper, the community will next hear his thoughts on the subject
during a "state of the university" address he will give at the annual meeting
of the Academic Council on April 29. Staff and students are invited to attend
the session. The time and location are yet to be announced.

Webb Ranch

Broaching the subject of living conditions at Webb Ranch, Casper announced
that installation of eight used trailers formerly occupied by students in
Manzanita Park, and donated to the ranch, had been delayed 30 to 90 days by
San Mateo County regulations.

Casper said that San Mateo County's Local Agency Formation Commission
(LAFCO) and the West Bay Sanitary District were requiring a "negative impact
declaration," which he surmised was similar to an environmental impact report
showing the trailers would have no negative impact under county or state law.

The Webb family had been led to believe it did not need such a
declaration, Casper said, but was informed otherwise on March 1. In the
meantime, installation "got off to a good start in early February." Two weeks
of rain then delayed the project before the government agencies stepped in,
Casper said.

Professor Ronald Rebholz, chairman of English, asked Casper to intervene
personally to try to improve ranch workers' wages, which he said range from
$5 for general labor to $6.50 maximum for those who operate machinery at what
Rebholz called the "very lucrative" Webb Stables. The wages are so low, he
said, that workers do not qualify for health benefits.

"It's time to recognize that, as a Daily editorial put it, this is not a
problem of law, but a problem of moral obligation," Rebholz said. He asked
that the administration intervene to raise the minimum wage to $8, the
minimum at which the workers, who are members of United Stanford Workers,
would qualify for health benefits.

Casper told Rebholz that the university does not operate the ranch and has
no legal leverage. "I do not see how we can take over determining the terms
of employment of Webb workers," he said, but the community has brought
pressure to bear on the Webbs.

The current lease does include a clause about living conditions, and "that
is leverage we have used" to prod action on the trailers, Casper said.

Rebholz responded that Casper "could exercise very impressive moral
leverage," such as staging a meeting with the Webbs in his office to discuss
the issues.

Medical Center affairs

Expressing concern about the amount of time Casper devotes to medical
affairs, electrical engineering Professor Anthony Siegman asked the president
if it is reasonable to "expect one individual to cope simultaneously with
both the leadership of a major university and the management of not just a
medical school but a massive "medical mega-complex"?

At the last senate meeting, when announcing creation of the medical center
task force, "you stated that no other issue had taken so much of your time
and energy as the relationship between the Packard Hospital and the
university's medical school," Siegman said.

His reaction, and that of others, Siegman said, is "what kind of academic
issue is this? How does a peripheral issue like this take priority over what
seems to be other and more serious problems at Stanford University?"

Casper responded that "I occasionally engage in hyperbole, but in reality
it is even worse than you understand." He said the time he spends is not on
the relationship of the Packard hospital to the medical school, but the
relationship of the children's hospital to the main hospital, an issue former
President Donald Kennedy "tried to settle before he left office, but wasn't
able to do."

Casper said that when an institution has a medical faculty, it also needs
a relationship with a hospital. "We have a hospital we own and an autonomous
hospital," he said.

He reminded Siegman that the reason he appointed the task force was to
develop a strategic plan for the entire medical center: the medical school,
Stanford Hospital and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.

Casper said he sees no way out of his role at the center of the three
entities, but the task force may consider other possibilities.

Until 10 years ago, he said, the university had a vice president for
medical affairs to whom both the dean and hospital answered. In the absence
of that structure, "the president has to take responsibility. It is probably
not an ideal arrangement," he said.

Casper speculated that other university presidents who oversee medical
schools and hospitals probably "are in exactly the same situation."

Provost report

In his report to the senate, Provost Gerald J. Lieberman announced
creation of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) faculty
group at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). This will give the
SSRL faculty status similar to that of the SLAC faculty.

Lieberman also announced that the faculty committee considering housing
policies headed by economics Professor Gavin Wright is proceeding with its
work. He said the committee would look at new ideas, but complaints about
existing arrangements would be deferred until after this committee completes
its work.

STANCOM disbanded

In other news, senators voted to discharge with thanks the Senate Ad Hoc
Committee on the Structure and Functions of Academic Council Committees
(STANCOM), headed by electrical engineering Professor Joseph Goodman.

Established in fall 1990 to study the organization of committees,
STANCOM's major achievement was proposing creation of the Planning and Policy
Board. Last year's senate followed through on the suggestion.

Goodman said his ad hoc committee originally thought that the Committee on
Libraries could be combined with the Committee on Academic Computing and
Information Systems if a combined committee could limit itself to policy
considerations.

In the end, STANCOM backed down from the suggestion, citing sensitivities
about the administrative merger of the libraries and computing organizations,
and the probability that faculty input will continue to extend beyond policy
issues.

"It is a great irony," Goodman told the senate, "that a committee created
to perhaps simplify processes has in fact added one committee and achieved
little else."

He made a plea for the senate "to disband us and put us out of our
misery."

His colleagues complied.

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